


Within This Flower Lies My Love

by Snowgrouse



Category: Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Backstory, Dark Het, Dark Poetry, F/M, Gothic Romance, Het, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Poetry, Romance, The Thousand And One Nights (poetry), villain origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 12:44:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6985708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaffar's hopes and dreams during the blue rose scene; the despair and the memories that led him to this point. </p><p>***</p><p>Within this flower lies my love.<br/>Within its perfume the last breath<br/>Of that which in me is good<br/>Reaching out for the last time–<br/>If not now, then never<br/>Shall I turn back from the road to Hell.</p><p>Oh, I am in Hell–<br/>Within this flower lies my love,<br/>Its dew my prayerful tears<br/>That Love should turn her face to me<br/>And make into a good man this wretch.</p><p>I once was a husband, father, lover,<br/>To man, woman a friend<br/>Until a tyrant’s rage turned it all to dust,<br/>A desert of bitterness.</p><p>Yet–<br/>Long after I became tyrant in that tyrant’s stead<br/>Yet–<br/>Long after the laughter of women died from my chambers<br/>Yet–<br/>Long after the little hands that once brought me apples were put into the ground–</p><p>In this sand and wind and heat<br/>This rose still stands<br/>A rose blue, and therefore, a mirage<br/>Waiting patiently for its dream-companion:<br/>The mirage of the nightingale<br/>That would sing even for me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Within This Flower Lies My Love

**Author's Note:**

> Utilising the tropes and the pathos of the tortured, scorned lover of medieval Persian poetry, the tragedy of the Barmakids and the Gothic Romantic fervour Conrad Veidt was all about.

Within this flower lies my love.  
My loneliness its thorns,  
The shy petals of it my hope against hope–  
Its blue colour that of things impossible,  
Its fragrance a drug born from a need,  
A necessity of a body in pain.

A perversion of man upon Nature  
Mirroring the crime I am about to commit  
The ancient crime of Man upon Woman–  
Oh, I know this.  
I have no excuse–

Only this ugly, sticky, dark and black need  
The blood poisoned,  
The heart pierced by betrayal upon rejection upon humiliation  
Upon need,  
Upon need,  
Upon need.

Within this flower lies my love.  
Within its perfume the last breath  
Of that which in me is good  
Reaching out for the last time–  
If not now, then never  
Shall I turn back from the road to Hell.

Oh, I am in Hell–  
Within this flower lies my love,  
Its dew my prayerful tears  
That Love should turn her face to me  
And make into a good man this wretch.

I once was a husband, father, lover,  
To man, woman a friend  
Until a tyrant’s rage turned it all to dust,  
A desert of bitterness.

Yet–  
Long after I became tyrant in that tyrant’s stead  
Yet–  
Long after the laughter of women died from my chambers  
Yet–  
Long after the little hands that once brought me apples were put into the ground–

In this sand and wind and heat  
This rose still stands  
A rose blue, and therefore, a mirage  
Waiting patiently for its dream-companion:  
The mirage of the nightingale  
That would sing even for me.

Within this flower lies my love  
And I have placed it in my lady’s path  
Offering her the sweetest of ecstasies:  
Oh, I had forgotten what it was like to be tender and sweet  
So its sweetness I approximated from old grimoires,  
Artificed it from the breath of djinn  
Tore open old wounds within my heart  
As I forced myself to remember  
The whirling, heady thrill  
Of Love’s first dizzying kiss.

These I dropped between its petals–  
My heart’s blood  
Just as the nightingale sacrifices his  
Pressing his heart into the rose’s thorn.

So, you see, my beloved, sweet:  
Within this flower lies my love  
Within this flower lies my life  
Within this flower lies my past and my future  
My heart and soul, all yours to keep.

It is not a good man  
Who so stands here in the shadows a coward,  
I know this;  
It is not a kind soul that brought you here.  
But upon my life,  
I swear–

But one touch from you  
Would make this poisoned well  
Again a wellspring clean;  
But one sweet word from you  
Would make this desert  
Again a flowering meadow;  
But one kiss from your lips  
Would unblacken this heart  
And let it know love once more.

So, there you have it–  
I have nothing more to say  
Now that you know all this:

Within this flower lies my love,  
Within it my hopes and dreams;  
They said we would love or that one of us would die  
Well, then, my sweet Yassamin–  
Make it swift at least.


End file.
